Shout Back! Festival - Celebrating the Underrepresented in Vancouver Music

Scrambled Debutante played their first official punk show last night at the ArtBank on Powell for Shout Back! Festival. An entirely DIY, three-day, moshy, braless, anti-capitalism and all-together awesome music/workshop weekend dedicated to celebrate the local punk music. It acknowledges the underrepresented groups (women, LGBTQ, non-White) in the music industry as part of a movement and proponent of contemporary culture and art collective.

I want to take a moment to appreciate the effort everyone put in to make something this amazing possible. Not only was this significant in terms of its intended message, but it's also extremely meaningful in the way that it was a open forum for freedom of expression.

HOOVES

Four incredibly energetic women with some of most interesting vocals I've ever heard. These girls are so fun to watch and super kind too. They were the first on and played before us. All of them stayed for the whole night and came and said awesome things to me after we finished. Truly rad musicians.

SKUNT

Some of the most amazing covers of Pixies, Lou Reid and Le Tigre ever! The lead singer/guitarist packs a powerful punch in her singing/playing while the rest of the band complemented her energy with the raddest and the loudest back-up vocals.

LUNCHLADY 

HOLY SHIT CAN THEY PLAY AND SCREAM LIKE NO BODY'S BUSINESS! I missed the first couple of their songs because the venue was like a steam room with all the sweaty, dancing, happy punks thrashing about but once I joined back into the rocking out, this band blew me away. The lead singer/guitarist is a theatrical woman with the most amazing outfit - white vintage sleeping gown style dress with a tampon belt which she attached individual tampons with red tips to her waistline. Whatever, her costume is not nearly as out of this world as her powerful growls and fuck-you-in-the-ear sing/yelps. Complete with walking bass lines and atonal guitar licks, they sound something right out of Olympia from the 90's. A true-to-the-roots group of riot grrls, here in Vancouver, FUCK! YEAH!

DEADSOFT

They're probably my favourite band from Vancouver at this point. My drummer Jamie had the privilidge of touring with these guys in July and I'm still seething with jealousy. The bass player Keeley has some mad chops comparable to Kim Deal. Nathaniel, the guitar player/singer is a beast in that he's working like seven petals and playing guitar so hard it makes my hand hurt. The drummer, who's name I've forgotten drives every single song and carries crazy punk magic with each kick, and hit. So so so so so so so good. After the show, I showed my appreciation by patting everyone on their sweaty backs and Keeley and I both agreed that perhaps Scrambled Debutante and Deadsoft should play a show again very soon.

Lolita

I realized that I'm simply not cut-out to be super involved in fashion because obviously I don't make enough time to post regular posts. For the fashion lovers still recovering from the hollow echos of my absence, you will never be left wondering what I'm wearing again because here's my Instagram. With this, you'll be able to check in every day to ensure that I have not left the house naked. For the others who are still reading. I will write for you some of the things that has been particularly interesting to me.

      

My new job has demanded much of my time and attention and it's now at the forefront of my everyday functioning. I am waiting for grad school to start in September. 

I am currently with reading Lolita by Nabokov. Alas, my book is used and the cover page has disintegrated over time due to overuse-age. The rest of the book will probably follow a similar fate because of it, so I will have to get a new one. Perhaps a hard cover copy. 

If you haven't read the book, I high recommend it. Nabokov's prose is extremely captivating. Though the theme is taboo but all the naughty bits are implied and just subtle enough that it allows the readers to use their imagination. It's a fantastic read for anyone who is interested in exploring that aspect of human sexuality. However, the novel is more than just sex and the characters are very complex and relatable.

Agoraphobia

I haven't been going out too much lately - Not just in terms of drinking and partying but also literally not leaving the house - so for the first time in a long while I went downtown by myself and it was a horrifying experience.

First of all, when you've been cooped up in a single bedroom apartment on the top floor of a low rise building located in the suburbs for weeks all by yourself , you forget how loud everything is in city. I guess I could've diminished the noise around me by putting in my head phones in but I was also so captivated by every sound and unintelligible voice. This experience was awfully unsettling and with every elevation in the noise level, I was becoming very aware of how isolated and environment-sensitive I am.

Another problem is navigation. I kept bumping into people. I guess my social-assertiveness and self preserving aggression had also been on the decrease, so every time I felt the slightest guilt from somehow inconveniencing people by accidentally being in their way, I apologized emphatically. Luckily I was able to finish my errands in no time and return home  before I crumbled to the floor in the middle of Vancouver,  in a puddle of my own anxiety induced vomit. This is the first time I experienced what it it might feel like to have agoraphobia. I wonder if some other phobias can be developed this way. It almost seems too easy and this notion is of course, very frightening... ...FUCK!

Off the Grid

Some of you may have noticed that my blog had gone missing for a few weeks. You see, I realized there's a typo in my domain name (hapeningsinss is missing a "p") and corrected it without considering the catastrophic chain reaction of voiding every single hyperlink which lead to this humble little blog. 

For the month I was off the grid, I do apologize. I hope I didn't do any irreparable damage to some of the other blogger's credibility - promoting a blog to readers that doesn't seem to exist.

Well, now I've reverted back to hosting a blog with a misspelled domain named it comforts me in a way that perhaps I can start owning my other mistakes. For example: Not appreciating King Crimson up until now.

You can be sober or super high on your drug of choice for this. I promise you, this will make all the hipster shit you've been listening to sound like eating watery lettuce with warm vinaigrette.

Selling Yourself Short Doesn't Increase Self-Worth

Without making this post sound like it came straight out of a page of a psudo-scientific self-help book, I want to share with you the secrets to being happy.

Just kidding. This is going to be a post for the mid-20 somethings who are struggling with self-identity through career choice. I'm confident in my credibility seeing how I've been doing my best to redefine who I am during this time of unemployment.

Since my last update, I'm still unemployed and am slowly starting to feel the burn of not having enough money so I've been job hunting, and it hasn't been easy. This is because I don't care for half of the stuff I've applied to and desperation has made me devalue myself to a point where I've literally sent my resumes to some of the most worthless jobs. After a few weeks of mindlessly sending off resumes and cover letters, I landed myself an interview today for an opportunity I randomly encountered on the street. It was for a nonprofit organization and the job was public outreach. You know those people in silly vests with binders who try to guilt you into donating on a monthly basis for a cause you semi care for. Yeah, I was going to interview to be one of them.

The interview was to take place on Wednesday at 3 P.M. in a group format and I wasn't there. Why? Well, I made a conscious choice not to go. No, it wasn't because I was lazy or unmotivated or whatever. I just didn't feel like sitting through another interview where I know deep down it isn't the job I want. In other more blatant words  I felt like it would've been a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here sitting on a high horse thinking I'm way too good to be working for a nonprofit organization as a public outreach canvasser. On the contrary, I admire people who bust their asses all day talking to total strangers on the street about how they can be an important part of the solution to end world hunger, human trafficking, animal abuse, or what have you. What I realized is that I'm really not that type of activist. I tend to like to take matters in my own hands and get very selfish about my believes because they make me feel great about who I am. I will certainly try to influence other in many instances but I do it through example (again, not stroking my own ego) and by being absolutely head-strong and never asking for charity. In the end I reserve those bleeding heart, soap box speeches for dinner parties and social gatherings where I can get as emotionally invested and outwardly intense as I can get so other people feel stupid for averting their attention away from me. Thus, I wouldn't be able to truly convince people unless I get up and arms about a cause and I certainly wouldn't be able or allowed to get in someone's face if professionalism is involved. I mean, that is how I ended up jobless in the first place, remember?

Another important caveat in my turning down this opportunity also involves my ever-evolving self-identity. I realized that while jobs are important for support one's living expenses, they should also reflect who you are as a person rather than the other way around. In other words, (or maybe Tyler Durden words "you are not your fucking job"), we shouldn't define ourselves according to our jobs. Rather, We should define our jobs according to what we want ourselves to be. This is a hard lesson to learn for all of us especially when we equate working with productivity and productivity with self-worth. Let's be frank though, having a job doesn't guarantee quality of self-worth. I'll put myself forth as an example. Throughout the years of me working at various jobs I didn't give a shit about I slowly devalued myself as a person. I mean I started to see myself and tell people about myself in accordance to my job duties. A normal conversation with me often included what my job is. Then some comments would be exchanged on that topic by both the person I'm talking to and myself and an hour would go by and I would've felt like I told that person nothing about myself. I was never proud of what I did and this was taking a toll on me. Thus after I quit my most recent job I've decided that I will no longer feel the social pressure to just find any job. I want to build myself around what I'm passionate about, even if it means taking some time to slowly discover less obvious routes. Now that I've realized what the difference between a job and a career is, the rest should fall in to place...???